NBA Eastern Conference Finals

[The Czech Republic 0]

The Pistons play awful under Gar heard. It would literally be forfeiting the ECF.

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No it wouldn't.

 

 

 

HE LITERALLY RIPPED HIS HEAD OFF AND BROKE HIM IN HALF

[alfdogg 0]

Miami wins 88-76 to go up 3-2

[Damaramu 0]

I sure hope Detroit can pull this out. A Detroit/SA final would so kick 100000 kinds of ass.

[cabbageboy 0]

God no. Anything but that. If you'd like a Final 4 game with Pitt vs. Cincy then SA vs. Detroit is your series. Seriously, the Pistons are so fucking unwatchable. I try, I really do. Then I see nothing but people bricking shots, hacking...I can accept that stuff in college games but I expect more from pros.

 

Besides, the Spurs are about as tough and can shoot infinitely better than Detroit. It'd be over in 5.

[Guest Vitamin X]

I'm comfortable in my belief knowing at least that Shaq isn't "winning this title on his own", considering Wade has basically led the Heat throughout these playoffs.

[Crimson Platypus 0]

God no.  Anything but that.  If you'd like a Final 4 game with Pitt vs. Cincy then SA vs. Detroit is your series.  Seriously, the Pistons are so fucking unwatchable.  I try, I really do.  Then I see nothing but people bricking shots, hacking...I can accept that stuff in college games but I expect more from pros.

 

Besides, the Spurs are about as tough and can shoot infinitely better than Detroit.  It'd be over in 5.

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Infinitely better? The Spurs are shooting 46% in the playoffs, and Detroit is shooting 43%. If 3% is infinitely better I'm Jesus Christ.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

i hate to say it, but it looks like the pistons are out of gas, just the way they played, the refs getting inside thier heads AGAIN. I dont see them winning two in a row against Miami. the difference maker was 'Zo. yeah i really hate him too, but i think he was the rasheed-like pickup that put them over the hump. still i hope i'm wrong. shaq vs duncan is so old and boring.

[Guest bigm350]

i hate to say it, but it looks like the pistons are out of gas, just the way they played, the refs getting inside thier heads AGAIN. I dont see them winning two in a row against Miami. the difference maker was 'Zo. yeah i really hate him too, but i think he was the rasheed-like pickup that put them over the hump. still i hope i'm wrong. shaq vs duncan is so old and boring.

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I agree. I want the Pistons to repeat but they look dead. Too many bricks and not enough defensive stops. How well did Miami shoot in that first half? Like 60%?

 

The main problem for Detroit was their guards taking way too many shots. When Billups and Hamilton are taking more than half of their shots, the Pistons tend to lose. Foul trouble against Rasheed Wallace didn't help either, and Ben Wallace just cannot handle Shaq. The only guy that I see doing a decent job against Shaq is old man Elden Campbell.

 

For the Pistons being such a great defensive team, they haven't found a solution to stop Wade, either. The only thing that has slowed him down is the rib or back injury he sustained last night.

 

Still, even if Wade is less than 100% I still don't see the Pistons winning this series. They might win Game 6 but that's it. They look too beleguered and tired to pull it off. Whether it has anything to do with Larry Brown's possible exit, I haven't a clue, but this doesn't look like the same hungry team from last year.

[Dangerous A 0]

D-Wade did not practice today and I predict he'll be a game time decision to keep the Pistons guessing whether or not he'll play.

 

This is a huge wrinkle in the series. You don't want to risk Wade aggravating the injury if he can't get up to at least 85-90% because you do have Game 7 in your house, but you also want to take advantage of oppurtunities when they present themselves and if the Heat can eliminate Detroit on Sat., they should go for it. The Finals start next Thrursday no matter if this series goes to 7 games or not. The Heat should try to do what it can to wrap things up Sat. I don't think they will because I'm banking on the Pistons coming out guns blazing in their house since they are facing elimination. Plus, Rasheed WILL get back on track. If you think he's going to play like he did in Game 5 for a second consecutive game, you are wrong. He also guaranteed a win, which I think he does to push himself to be more aggressive. As Barkley said last night, when Rasheed is interested in the game, he's as tough a cover as anyone in the league.

[Fökai 0]

Heat should try to do what it can to wrap things up Sat. I don't think they will because I'm banking on the Pistons coming out guns blazing in their house since they are facing elimination.

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But the Pistons' style of play is reliant on physical defense. Why risk your superstar in that type of environment? The Pistons will play a MUCH more physical game tomorrow than they will in Game Seven. Unless Wade says the injury won't affect his play, you don't risk him in this situation.

 

He also guaranteed a win, which I think he does to push himself to be more aggressive.

 

The comment was that he expected the referees to basically fix the game to ensure a Game Seven to give the Spurs a few extra days of rest. With that being said, don't you think the referees will be ordered by the NBA to call a much tighter game? If that's the case, Rasheed will be picked on the whole game and foul out early in the 4th quarter.

[iggymcfly 0]

Does anyone else think it's ridiculous how much criticism ESPN and Co. are heaping on Larry Brown?

 

I mean does it really interfere with the Pistons' ability to play basketball just to know their coach will be in Cleveland next year? Does it really make Brown unable to coach if he's giving input on who Cleveland's coach and GM should be next year?

 

I just think the whole thing's been blown way, way out of proportion.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Bill Walton is fuckin pissed at Larry Brown!

I wanted so badly for this Eastern Conference final to be a great series, hopefully one of the best of all time. I love this game and I know how important this all is when everything is on the line here and I came with good intentions.

 

But Larry Brown has shown his true colors, letting the disease of conceit create an untenable mess that I can't see a way out of for him. This is officially a disaster of epic proportions.

 

When this story first started simmering early this week, we were all waiting for the next Mark Felt and the new Deep Throat to shine the light in the darkest of corners. Amazingly, we didn't have to wait anywhere near 30 years for this one. Brown took care of that when he stuck his own foot deep down in his throat.

 

Shame on Larry Brown. Rest assured I have no rooting interest whatsoever here, other than for a great game and I find myself mad as can be, unable to let it go.

 

He said "Gag me with a spoon!" on the ESPNNEWS Radio broadcast. Heh.

[Fökai 0]

Larry Brown is no Dean Smith

 

By Adrian Wojnarowski

Special to ESPN.com

 

The world was without the 24-hour news cycles and instantaneous Internet reports, a time in April 1983 when no New Jersey Nets season ticket holder could've known that owner Joe Taub had met the team flight at the airport and informed the Kansas Jayhawks' new coach that he had some nerve to think he would be allowed to coach the Nets in the playoffs. So, Taub fired Larry Brown just six games before the playoffs.

 

"Where's Larry?" the Nets most famous fan, Frank Capece, remembered yelling courtside before the start of the next game.

 

Larry Brown, the Pistons and the Cavs are all pointing into the Great Unknown right now.

 

There was assistant Bill Blair standing on the sideline coaching the Nets, the promise of a great playoff run soon to disintegrate into a first-round sweep.

 

"Where's Larry?"

 

Brown was gone, and so was the Nets' season, a routine that would repeat itself at Kansas after that national title four years later, again, and again, and again.

 

"We were a lot younger and a lot dumber in those days," Capece told me once. "This was before the megasalaries, before we believed that Micheal Ray Richardson could be doing the powder, before [TV] pushed us down the sidelines in our seats. When a coach like Larry Brown bailed on us, we took it personally."

 

"And through all these changes in the NBA, there has been one consistency and that consistency has been Larry Brown. He's got to fly, baby."

 

Detroit president Joe Dumars hasn't been blindsided by Brown's desire to leave for the Cleveland Cavaliers as much as his coach's denials have inspired a stormy playoff run. If you don't think Brown has been instrumental in the Cavaliers' coaching search, you must believe that Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert wanted to interview John Calipari because he's so impressed with those NIT banners Brown's boy has hung in Memphis. Or that well-regarded Milt Newton, his old Jayhawks star, would be hired as the general manager without any input from Brown?

 

As always, it isn't that Brown is leaving a job.

 

It's the way he's leaving.

 

After winning that NBA title a season ago, Brown had a chance to reshape his legacy for the history books. He had a chance to end his career with far more dignity and grace than he had conducted it. But Brown showed once again that he's the most selfish and disingenuous coach the profession has ever spawned. No pupil has ever come closer to Dean Smith's genius on the floor, and gone further from his character off it.

 

It wasn't losing out on a gold medal in Athens that sullied Brown, but selling out everyone in red, white and blue. Beginning with USA Basketball officials over the roster and continuing down to the U.S. players themselves, Brown arrived in Athens obsessed with blaming everyone for the failures of his Olympic fortunes before they had even played a game. This way, Brown had himself covered. If the U.S. team lost, it was inevitable. They were too immature, too thrown together, too fundamentally flawed. If they won, everyone would've said that the great Larry Brown had done it again.

 

NBA commissioner David Stern was irate, showing up at the Olympics to make sure he showered the players with praise and banging Brown for his deplorable dissertations. As always, Brown demands out of his teams what he never demands of himself: Loyalty, commitment and selflessness. It's hilarious to hear him talk about the piety of the coaching profession, as though he has the credibility of Dean Smith to address rights and wrongs in the business. He leaves behind hard feelings, like he does broken promises and commitments.

 

So when two of Brown's disciples, Calipari and Byron Scott, were fired in New Jersey, Brown ripped his old Jersey employer.

 

For?

 

A lack of loyalty, of course.

 

Somehow, Brown could never see the irony.

 

Nets president Rod Thorn had nothing to do with Calipari, but it was his call to replace Scott with Lawrence Frank. Last year, I remember talking to Thorn high in the stands of the Auburn Hills Palace before a Nets-Pistons playoff game, just watching him do a slow burn over the shots Brown had delivered to him.

 

"He took a shot at me ... about loyalty," Thorn said. "For Larry Brown to ever say anything about loyalty. I mean, loyalty and Larry Brown don't go together. It's ludicrous."

 

"Of all people ... Of all people."

 

It isn't that Brown is disloyal because he wants to take the president's job with the Cavaliers. (By the way, Marc Stein is right about how unfit Brown is for a franchise's presidency. Brown is going to make Rick Pitino look patient and well-reasoned as a personnel director.) The trouble is, Brown still can't tell the truth, and that has turned this championship chase into a circus for the Pistons. Dumars is wise to refrain from the rash choice of pulling a Joe Taub and pulling the plug on Brown's coaching career in Detroit now. He's still the best chance the Pistons have to win a championship, and that's all that matters.

 

However the season ends, it promises to end with Brown running again, from his old team, from the truth, and from his responsibilities to behave like a Hall of Famer. As that old Nets fan, Frank Capece, told me, "You know what you're getting with him. It's kind of like we dated the town's flirt, and you knew she was going to be a tease, and eventually, she was going to leave you. You know what you're getting with Larry."

 

Yes, you do.

 

Best coach, biggest phony.

 

It's strange, but no one has ever so honored and dishonored the legacy of Dean Smith.

 

Adrian Wojnarowski is a sports columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book, "The Miracle Of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley And Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty," is available nationwide.

[MikeJordan23 0]

Does anyone else think it's ridiculous how much criticism ESPN and Co. are heaping on Larry Brown?

 

I mean does it really interfere with the Pistons' ability to play basketball just to know their coach will be in Cleveland next year? Does it really make Brown unable to coach if he's giving input on who Cleveland's coach and GM should be next year?

 

I just think the whole thing's been blown way, way out of proportion.

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I agree it might not have an effect on the veterans and it's not hurting the team much if at all.

 

But Larry Brown is known for this kinda stuff. It would be different if it was a first time thing.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Larry Brown has shown his true colors, letting the disease of conceit create an untenable mess that I can't see a way out of for him. This is officially a disaster of epic proportions.

[alfdogg 0]

So yeah, Pistons won tonight.

[razazteca 0]

Rasheed's conspiracy theory is true?

[Guest *KNK*]

If it was true, they would not have allowed Detroit to rape Miami tonight.

 

Tonight just showed that a Wade-less Heat arent much.

[Damaramu 0]

If it was true, they would not have allowed Detroit to rape Miami tonight.

 

Tonight just showed that a Wade-less Heat arent much.

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Stephen A: Shaq is the most DOM-I-NANT force in the game. No way Steve Nash deserved the MVP over him. The Heat are nothing without Shaq. The most DOM-I-NANT player in the game.

[Guest pinnacleofallthingsmanly]

Shaq getting blood drained from his leg after every game + Dwayne Wade not there to drop 40 points on the Pistons = Pistons win by 20.

[Damaramu 0]

I sure as hell am hoping the Pistons win Monday. They're so close. They haven't lost a game 7 in what? 15 years?

[bobobrazil1984 0]

66 points!? Dude, wade or no wade, that's frikken awful.

I only caught teh first half. funny thing i was at a bowling alley with some friends, and right above our lane was a screen with the game on it. after the 1st quarter it was tied, 14-14. it was obvious right then that this would be a strong detroit win even though it was tied. unless you're the pacers, you score that little against detroit and you've already lost the battle of tempo. still didnt expect the absolute massacre though. miami better hope and pray d-wade can play.

 

and who exactly is larry brown supposed to be distracting? Not the players, who have long since started rolling their eyes and ignoring the latest LB drama (he's oging to new york! he's going to la! he's going to cleveland!). Not the detroit fans, polls before the current drama already showed that they expected this to be Brown's last season.

 

so, uh, who exactly?

 

sounds like the media needs to bitch about something.

[Damaramu 0]

Yeah if you're scoring low against the Pistons in the beginning you can pretty much tell they're going to lay it down on you.

In Game 1 of the Finals last year even though LA led through a lot of the game you could tell they weren't going to win b/c of the tempo of the game.

I don't know. I like Dwayne Wade but the Heat are starting to remind me of the new Lakers with all the movie stars moving in and what not.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Damaramu hates movie stars. What's your beef with that shit, man? I can't fathom disliking a team just because I dislike celebrities showing up to their games. That has to be the most retarded reason to dislike a team, ever.

 

I dislike the Heat because of their fans (and Shaq), not because of the celebrities. They LOVE rubbing it in my face when I go out wearing a Kobe jersey or a Lakers shirt, but then I asked them where the Heat were two years ago before Wade and they quickly shut up. Miami has never gone to the Finals, while I'm more than used to it, and I'd be happy for them going there if they weren't all such bandwagoners. I really like Wade and I miss Eddie Jones since even though I went to Kareem/Magic games at the Forum during the 80's, the Lakers I remember best actually watching were the frustrating ones of the mid-90's before Kobe, Shaq, and Phil came along. I had a poster a long time ago of the old Lakers with Divac, Van Exel, and Jones. Fun times, though it sucked getting knocked out of the divisional round or less every year, but at least it prepared me for the current Packer dilemma.

 

But yeah, I'm happy to see the Pistons not die so quickly. They find ways to win when everything says they shouldn't. They're like the Patriots of basketball, and while I'm a football purist and love watching the Pats play, I don't feel quite the same way about basketball and find the Pistons not to be the most exciting of teams, but I like the way they win and don't give up.

[Damaramu 0]

It just annoys me b/c I'm sure that over half of them are there just to be seen on TV and aren't real fans. Haven't people that were Lakers frequents begun showing up at Heat games?

At least the Lakers had Jacko who was a true fan.

 

Anyways ESPN is driving me crazy! They had this blurb on sportscenter(i didn't see the actual story so someone can clue me in) that said the Heat would win Game 7 with or without Dwayne Wade b/c *ESPN open mouth inster Shaq cock* they have SHAQ!

Wow really!? Then why hasn't he willed the Heat to victory yet? Why has Dwayne Wade won these games for the Heat? Why hasn't Shaq just scored 200 points and crushed the Pistons under one foot? Listening to ESPN you'd think he could do it at will.

[Guest Vitamin X]

As much as I hate the guy, I have to be fair: He IS injured. He's been playing injured for a while now, and there's not much he CAN do, but an injured Shaq is still a lot better than nothing. Every single time this series has been tied, Miami has gone out and won, with the exception of Game One.

 

Haven't people that were Lakers frequents begun showing up at Heat games?

Who knows, but most Laker fans do live in LA.. The Staples crowd isn't composed of just movie stars, you know, it happens to be the second most populated city in the country, and there are millions of Laker fans that aren't celebrities. Many of these people are probably close friends with Shaq, whose got a thing with schmoozing with celebrities and being a celeb in his own right.

[Dangerous A 0]

I'm just gonna kick back tonight and hopefully watch a competitve Game 7. I don't have any real attachment to either team and have my reasons for wanting to watch each team succeed.

 

 

Reasons to want the Heat to succeed for me,

 

-Really like Wade, although if the Heat progress, he will not be 100% for the rest of the playoffs.

 

-Like Shaq and would like to see him stick it to the Lakers.

 

Reasons to want the Pistons to win,

 

-Used to be a Pistons fan (back in the Mahorn-Laimbeer-Rodman Bad Boys days) and don't mind seeing them move ahead although I've become a Kings fan first and foremost.

 

-Even though they blew their cool a couple times this series, the Pistons for the most part are a decent team with stand up guys. Even Rasheed is cleaned up in comparison to his Portland days. Winning will do that.

 

 

May the best team win.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Some dude on Sportscenter last night called Shaq "the greatest player on the planet" as their reason that Miami would win.

[Guest news_gimmick]

I'm going with Pistons for game 7. Wades injury is gonna be critical, he won't be able to play up to the level he has up to this point. Shaq can be neutralized and inconsequential as game 6 showed, and the Pistons have been here before. Thats the bottom line and we have our Spurs vs Pistons NBA finals.

[iggymcfly 0]

I just want to say that everyone should be prepared to see the real Shaquille O'Neal tonight.

 

He's been way too hurt to play up to potential throughout the entire playoffs, but facing elimination against the team that beat him last year, he's going to fight through the pain, play some good D, and get at least 30 and 20 against the Pistons tonight.

 

Having D-Wade back will obviously be huge as well, but Diesel will carry Miami on his back if he needs to.